Tori Spelling: Rich girl blues

“You’re a rich girl, and you’ve gone too far ’
Cause you know it don”t matter anyway
You can rely on the old man’s money
You can rely on the old man’s money
It’s a bitch girl but it’s gone too far ’
Cause you know it don’t matter anyway
Say money but it won’t get you too far
Get you too far”

— “Rich Girl” Hall & Oates

Tori Spelling in 2009 (Wikipedia)

Poor Tori Spelling, I guess she has gone too far in the eyes of the IRS and we are supposed to feel her pain. “I grew up rich beyond anyone’s dreams. Even when I try to embrace a simpler lifestyle, I can’t seem to let go of my expensive tastes.”

Seriously, she actually uttered those words. In a day and age where half of the adult population is either still reeling from the crash of 2008 or the continual loss of jobs to automation or cheaper labor overseas, we are suppose to feel bad about how tough it is to grow up rich in today’s world.

How many little girls have a father who has his hands all over half of what we watched on television? Who has a daddy who can just decide he wants a TV show to make his little girl a star? Who has a father so rich that when he dies, all you have to do is manage to live on the massive interest from the money you have inherited, or just the residuals from said TV show, to live like a little princess the rest of your life?

And now that daddy is gone and no one really sees you as a star or a princess, the IRS has decided to just drain a bank account of yours of over $700,000.00, more than I am guessing 99 percent of American working families will have in their portfolios when it is time to retire.

Tori, and her husband, Dean McDermott, someone else who I am told is famous (Do Americans even know what that word means any more?), also managed to run up another $125,000.00 in unpaid American Express bills in just two years. I guess they never left home without it. I also guess neither learned how to write a check to pay their monthly bills.

Now, for most people in her one percent class, when financial troubles hit, they lay low, a bit embarrassed about what is happening. Not the little princess. She has to open her yap and actually portray herself as a victim of a difficult life. Tori seems to have forgotten what difficult means and would be wise to really see what difficulty is by checking in on Shannon Doherty. Try fighting breast cancer and learn that there is a disease out there that does not care about your level of fame or fortune.

So what does a victim of her father’s wealth do to get out of her financial troubles? Other than running to the press and getting all the face time you can to remind others who you once were and why we should care, instead of laugh over your plight, you look for ways to make money that do not require you to work.

Enter, your five children — Put them to work.

This pile of blonde vapidness thinks the best way to make money is to pitch a “reality” TV show about her life raising five kids. After all, they have to have the same acting chops she has, right? She really wants to “brand” herself as a new domestic icon in the same manner as Martha Stewart.

Wouldn’t it be better for her to just get branded as “STUPID” since she is also unaware that Martha ended up going to prison?

So why are my britches worked up in a bunch over this “bubble headed bleached blonde?” She serves as a perfect example of what happens to people who attain wealth without ever having to work for it. Tori’s dad, Aaron Spelling, worked his way up the Hollywood ladder and was richly rewarded as a result. He took pride in showing his wealth off which is well within his right. However, when wealth, or anything else for that matter, is just handed down to someone who has never had to earn it, it tends to be easily squandered.

Giving a person something means less to them than teaching them and requiring them to earn it. We all know this. However, we are heading down the fast track of creating a society where no one will work because we are becoming a fully automated nation. No job, from field worker to cop to surgeon will be safe from robots and God knows what else in the future. What happens to a culture built around spending the money we have earned on products designed to break just so we buy more if no one is working?

If all we have is a monthly government allowance given to us for no reason other than because we exist and nothing but time on our hands, what do we do? If it pays the same to stay home and bake our brains on the marijuana now grown in fully automated green houses or to go do volunteer work in a struggling third world country, what do you think the average person will choose?

I do not feel sorry for Tori Spelling, even if being a rich girl is a tough gig in life. Try being born a poor girl. I am also glad I am not just starting out life now because what I see down the road is a lot of trouble. Too many people struggling to find a way to be productive today has resulted in one group of people blaming other groups. At what point do all these groups unite and start protesting more than the loss of jobs, but rather, the loss of a sense of purpose in this increasingly automated world we created?

Top photo: YouTube screen shot of Tori Spelling in COED Call Girl “Some of us have to work for a living.”

About the author

Jim is a life long resident of California and retired school teacher with 30 years in public education. Jim earned his BA in History from CSU Chico in 1981 and his MA in Education from Azusa Pacific University in 1994. He is also the author of Teaching The Teacher: Lessons Learned From Teaching. Jim considers himself an equal opportunity pain in the ass to any political party, group, or individual who looks to profit off of hypocrisy. When he is not pointing out the conflicting words and actions of our leaders, the NFL commissioner, or humans in general, he can be found riding his bike for hours on end while pondering his next article. Jim recently moved to Camarillo, CA after being convinced to join the witness protection program. Contact the author.